


Three words long, a long time coming

by ThatwasJustaDream



Series: February Bingo: Love Card [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: 1-million-words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3318707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day comes when Castiel feels it in full: That the particular form of love he has for Dean may be unrequited. The last thing he wants to do is make Dean deeply unhappy. So perhaps it's best to go....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Date Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the February Bingo on the 1_million-words comm on LJ. Titles are the prompts.

“Getting ready for your standing Thursday night date?” Sam asked on his way by Dean in the hall, headed for the bunker’s bathroom just as Dean was leaving it.

“Nice try. But I’m not swinging’ back at any jabs tonight, Sammy. Not a one....” His brother kept walking, a towel around his waist and another working at drying his hair. “In too good a mood for sparring.”

He turned as he said it, though, and flicked towel number two hard at Sam’s bare lower back, landing it an inch north of where his sweat pants rode low on his hips. 

Damn if he didn’t get him so good that the fabric snapped like a whip, burning as it landed.

“Owwww,” Sam barely looked back to toss him a glare as Dean laughed. “Fucker.”

“You could come _with_ …” He heard Dean offer. “Pretty sure it’ll take the non-existent stink off of our simple get-together at a roadside restaurant if you see how boring and matter of fact our conversation is.”

“Already ate. Got some reading to do,” Sam kept going, rubbing the newly sore spot on his ass cheek. “Say hello to Castiel for me.”

“Will do.”

~*~

“So none of the possibilities you two discussed last time panned out at all?” Sam asked him when he got back.

“Not a damn one…” Dean dropped onto the sofa - and though he looked worn from the continual effort of thinking about the Mark and how to lose it, he still looked even more relaxed than he had a few hours ago, more content for the time spent with Cas. “He’s still working on his issues, too. That latest dose of grace he lucked into is hangin’ in there, but…. s’only a matter of time, right?”

“Huh….” Sam said.

“‘Huh,’ what?”

“Dean….can I ask you something without you getting pissed off?”

“I don’t know. How about you try it and we’ll see?”

“Okay… so remember a few weeks ago, I said maybe the answer is for you to control the Mark rather than shed it? And I asked you to think about what Cain had that you don’t?”

“I do remember. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me then and it’s not getting any clearer now. I’m kind of running on fumes, Sam, so maybe spit it out?”

“What if… _Cas_ is what you’ve got. Not because of any solution he might contribute but….because of what you are to each other?”

“Are you kidding me with this?”

“Dean….”

“Did I not tell you outside that school building that you were going to shut up about him forever?”

“You… did.. but…”

“So has forever come and gone and I missed it?”

“You know how you have a reputation for being a stubborn ass?” Sam got up, snapping shut the book he’d been reading, taking it along as he left for the privacy of his bedroom. “This would be an example of why.”

“Hey, I got an idea,” Dean shouted after him. “How about instead of coming up with fanciful parallels between me and Cain….you find a way to get this brand off my goddamned arm?”

Sam had a few more choice words in reply, but happily he was far enough down the hall that they were nothing more than a mumbled growl.

It took all that Dean had to stick to his plan to be healthier and be well - to hit the lights and crash, too, rather than search up some liquor. But he did it. He turned in and expressly did not think about what Sam had said. Or about Castiel. 

He really didn’t think about Castiel at all. Not a bit. And if he _dreamed_ about him, well… that wasn’t exactly under his control.

~*~

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“What do you get out of this?”

“Excuse me?”

It was a week later and they were at their same diner, meeting up alone again rather than having a bite at the bunker with Sam like they could have if they’d wanted to.

“It’s been weeks since you two saved my demon-posessed ass,” Dean watched Cas pick at the fries on his plate. “We keep looking for answers, keep talking things through. You come from….God knows where every seven days to be with me but …it’s like we’re spinning our wheels.”

“I’d hardly say we’re spinning our….”

“Sam’s got it in his head that we’re soul mates,” Dean flinched at the cynicism in his own voice and how harsh it sounded. “Like we _need_ each other or something. He's such a ...sap sometimes. A bunch of teenaged girls tell him what to think, and….”

“A bunch of…what?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“I seem to recall you using those words once,” Castiel said. “Saying you needed me. But perhaps things…have changed?”

The look on Cas’ face - so measured. Patient. So trying not to think the worst about what Dean was asking and what it said about his dedication to him. It made him want to shut up and change the subject. But some perverse part of his brain wouldn’t play ball with that plan.

“Well there’s _need_ and then… there’s….. _need_. Two different things, am I right?” 

“I’m probably not going to be able to come here next week,” Castiel said it fast. Rote. Like he’d been practicing this in his head for some time. “I’ll keep in touch. We can trade ideas on the phone. We can text. But… I should focus on finding my grace.”

“Sure you should,” Dean tried to make it clear he meant it, leaning in toward him, hand going to Cas’ sleeve but Cas pulled away.

“In fact, I should leave now. I …”

“No, c’mon with me. You can stay with us tonight, get some rest before you…”

Dean looked away long enough to search up his wallet from his pocket and when he raised his head again Castiel was gone.

“Cas!” he yelled it loudly enough to draw some funny looks from the closer tables. “Dammit!”

He made it all the way back to the car and into the driver’s seat before the weight of the conversation he wished they hadn’t had flattened the last of his will power.

On his way back into the place, he bypassed the restaurant for the bar. Then he told the bartender to pick a bottle and leave it with him. It really didn’t matter which one. Something cheap, that would leave him with a nice, ugly hangover packing a special hurt the next morning.

The Mark throbbed with joy when he slammed that first shot. Absolute, freaking, ‘happy to see you’ sang through his veins as the gin rolled down.


	2. Unrequited

“Not there, huh?” Sam looked up from his laptop and watched Dean march straight from the bunker's door to their fridge.

There really hadn’t been any need to ask the question out loud; Dean’s demeanor - the anger on his face and the slump in his shoulders - were enough answer.

“Three weeks,” Dean popped open a bottle of beer and came to join him at the table. “What if….”

Three Thursdays. No Castiel at the diner. No sightings of him in between, either.

“You’re still getting messages from him, though?”

Translation: there’s proof of life, correct?

“Yeah,” Dean said, but from the way he flinched, they must be cold comfort.

“What?”

“Cas used to text whole conversations at me some days. Complete with exclamation points and rows of those annoying damn doodads; smiles, frowns, thumbs up or thumbs down. And he’d call me three times, too, maybe. We’d think out loud about a problem, or he’d ask my opinion. Half of it was on-topic with whatever we were dealing with at the time but the other half….it was random crap about daily life or some philosophical question. Honestly it went in one ear and out the other with me but it was _his_ voice goin’ in one ear and…. Now all I’m getting are these down and dirty replies, like ‘yes, i’m fine’ or ‘I’m not sure,’ and ‘more as I learn it.’ The guy’s turning into a fricking Magic Eight Ball…”

Sam started to offer words of support but popped his mouth shut again. Somehow he had the feeling anything he said might come out sounding like ‘I told you so…’

Then Dean stood and cranked his arm back, ready to fling the can of beer at the far wall and…

“Hey, _woah_ ….down, tiger,” Sam stood and grabbed his wrist, felt Dean’s arm shaking as beer sloshed onto the table and just missed his computer. “Drink that. Don’t fling it. I really think you need a beer or three; all that healthy living might be too much too fast…”

Dean _had_ been better to himself again - at least, after the night when Castiel took off and he’d drunk himself almost comatose. He’d slept in the back seat of the Impala that night, in the far parking lot of the bar. Happily the staff had left him be when they closed up, hadn’t called the cops. And the pain of the hangover the next day, the way it made the Mark push him almost to the breaking point all over again were enough to put him back on the straight and narrow.

Still, Sam was concerned. Dean might start veering between that particular path and random ditches over and over again if they didn’t figure this out.

How his brother could not see it; what he turned into whenever Castiel was missing or presumed lost? It was blatant, really. But then, look up the term ‘self-analytical’ and you wouldn’t see Dean’s picture by it. Not now and not ever.

“I know this isn’t the most honest approach, but have you considered maybe telling him there’s an emergency? Flat out lie to him? You could text and call, leave some urgent messages….”

“Yeah, that’d go over great when he finds out the truth. He probably wouldn’t even stick around,” Dean took a long pull of the beer like he was fortifying himself. “No, if he comes back…there’s going to have to be talking. Detailed talking, about... _feelings_ and shit. More of it than I am anywhere near ready to face with him.”

“Wow….”

“What?” 

“That’s pretty honest, right there. That’s a long ways from ‘there’s nothing to discuss,’ isn’t it?”

“Well, obviously 'nothing to discuss' isn’t the case,” Dean sat back heavily. “You’ve always known ‘shut up forever’ means ‘I can’t deal’ and... I know it too. Will you stop looking at me like that?”

Sam knew he was grinning a little - in part at the words coming out of Dean, but also in realization. 

“I think I just figured out what you need to do….” he reached for Dean’s cell phone where he had set it on the table next to the beer, and dragged it to himself, well out of Dean’s reach. 

He saw the light come on, and Dean flinch again.

“You’re right. That's what I’ve gotta do,” Dean got up, headed for his room. “What if… he doesn’t answer me praying at him, either? What if it don’t matter what we are to each other…’cause he’s done trying?”

“I don’t see that happening,” Sam managed to grab and shake Dean's arm as he passed, and got a hint of a worried smile for the effort. “Of course he’ll answer you.”

All Sam could do was hope he wasn’t giving false reassurance. 

He thought about calling Cas to give him the heads up. Then he decided to let it play out as it would.

~*~

"Ohhhh...." Castiel lowered himself into the driver's seat of his car and pushed it back a notch, reaching down to pull off his shoes and toss them on the passenger's side floor. "....oh, hell....."

He'd walked the streets of this New England town for hours, tracking down the one good lead he'd found all week: Angels who had known Gadreel, known of his work with Metatron and who, like some of their brethren were laying low and trying to just _be_ for a while.

There was no assurance they'd know where his grace was being held captive... if it still _existed_...but.....

"What am I, even?" He looked over his exhausted form.

Half angel? Mostly human? Who knew? He didn't. 

Castiel looked down once more at his sore, swollen, socked feet and pulled the seat forward again, cranking the key to start the car.

It would be another five hour drive to the old sporting camp he was told the angels in question were working at; cooking and cleaning house for tourists, these days. An hour of the drive would be over rutted, unpaved logging roads. His body balked at the thought. 

He took another look at his cell phone before starting out. No message from Dean or Sam. 

He tried not to think about them as he drove - tried to focus on the task at hand, but the roads were wide and relatively empty in Maine and left plenty of space for ruminating.

It only made sense to pull away from the brothers, even to the degree that his worries were theirs and vice versa. They'd cover more ground this way - both literally and conceptually. And he wouldn't have to see it in Dean's eyes - how much he was avoiding certain things.

He had no doubt that Dean understood him. Knew that Castiel's devotion had stopped being about 'the mission' a long time ago. Knew that Castiel wanted him in every way there was to desire someone.

He had no doubt that Dean cared about him, too. But he might need to accept that's where their similarities ended. Because all the longing he'd felt from Dean in the past half dozen years? Lately it was ...still there. But tied down. Firmly. Like Dean had battened every hatch and put caulking around the seals, too, just in case any of it got out. 

And if someone fights that hard to contain something, then....what does that say about how scared they are? He couldn't, in good conscience......

Castiel's fingers were reaching for the phone on the passenger's seat with the thought of calling Sam, of just checking in, quickly, maybe, when it hit: A wave of _want_ and _sad_ and _need_ so strong that he almost swerved into the highway median.

And all of it aimed straight at him. 

"Whoooaaaah...." he steered back into his lane and focused, barely managing to find the next exit and a municipal parking lot where he could stop and breathe deep and...

"Cas, buddy," Dean's voice in his head, echoing lightly the way it always did when Dean prayed to him. 

The way Dean hadn't prayed to him since the week the angels fell.

"I know you're avoiding me and I know why you are and.... I'll understand if you keep doing it. But...please.... we gotta talk, Cas. Please head your ass back here, even though I can't promise you shit. Come talk with me, even if I might continue to be capable of ....less than I maybe should be? Cause I've gotta tell you....."

Castiel pushed the seat back as far as it would go - fighting for breathing room, tugging at the tie that suddenly felt like it was choking him. 

".....I'm not sure if I can keep going without you."

"Ohhhhh......"

The distances between them - not just Kansas and Maine, but a man born to duty and one to devotion - Castiel could feel every inch of all of them. And more concerning, maybe, he could feel all of the fracture points in his borrowed grace. But none of that mattered as much as.....

He locked the doors to his car, put the keys in his pocket, took a deep breath and...

~*~

"Sam _mmmmmyy_ yyy!"

Dean yelling for help. 

Castiel heard it before he saw him. Felt Dean's arms catching him as he fell, gathering him up, pulling him on his lap on the floor in....where? The bunker?

He felt a flicker of contentment at that - hitting the spot, exactly.

"I'm ....ooohhh...kay..." 

It sounded like someone else's voice saying it from a distance, but then he realized it was his own. 

"Cas, dammit...." Dean looking down at him, terrified, pale with fear. Oh, father, he must look like.....a wreck.

"Castiel, here... drink." Sam with water and a wet cloth for his face and a generous glass of whisky because apparently there was nothing his boys thought whisky might not heal.....

"Thanks," Cas grumbled it and drank. Felt better for the tending to as much as the liquid. 

He felt them stand down from attention, too, Dean still holding him in his lap but relaxing, Sam getting up from his crouch by them and pacing.

"I didn't expect you to show up like _this_ ," Dean practically barked it, anger being his primary way of showing relief. "Coulda called. Could have freaking _driven_ here...."

Castiel saw Dean's frown get even angrier at the smile growing over his own lips.

"You think this is funny?" Dean growled. "You almost emptying your entire goddamned tank to get here?"

Castiel raised a hand to trace the frown wrinkle between Dean's eyebrows with a finger.

"Hello, Dean," he said.


	3. Sweet Surrender

“Did you shoot right out of ‘em?” Sam jutted his chin in the direction of the floor under the table as he dropped Castiel a bowl of soup. 

“Oh…” Cas looked down, too, after nodding his thanks. He squinted at his socked feet, having forgotten that’s how he’d arrived. “No, I was…footsore. I spent hours trying to track the two angels down and…suddenly my shoes didn’t fit. So I tossed them on the passenger’s seat floor.”

“Do you think it’s wise?” Sam brought him a glass of water and sat opposite them. “Not going back right away? If they’re really the lead you need to find your grace….”

“A few days won’t matter,” Castiel said between spoons of vegetable beef. He didn’t need a lot of sustenance but it had been a long time since he’d had _any_ , longer than was probably reasonable. “If they’re spending the entire season at a hunting camp in Maine… well, there’s not much running they can or will do. And if I try to teleport again too quickly…”

“Got it. Well, text me their names and the names of the camp,” Sam looked between the two of them, Dean at Cas’ right, arms folded on the table and eyes fixed on Cas. “Anything else you can think of, too, that might be useful. I’ll do some more sniffing around online so when we head east….”

“Why did you ignore my phone calls?” Sam heard Dean ask, and the firm, quiet abruptness of it made his gaze snap to the floor. “My text messages? Why didn’t you …”

“I uh… think …I’ll…” Sam waved his phone in their general direction as he left. “Just….send that. To me. Castiel. All right?”

Cas nodded and looked down at his soup instead of at Dean, taking another bite.

“I thought perhaps I was doing you a favor,” he said eventually. “I left so you wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that I’m in… uh… that I love you. In ways you can’t….”

“Ways I can’t _what_?” Dean cut him off, voice hard. Then he sat back - a hand going up slightly to say ‘sorry, keep going.’

“But I get it now, Dean – I don’t _have_ to leave you behind for things to be as they must for us. I can stay with you and _work_ with you if I accept that our feelings for each other are simply of a different nature…”

“Aw, if that isn’t a load of….crap.”

“Excuse me?”

“Cas, is it not a fact that you know me down to my molecules?”

“Technically, it’s less about your molecules and more about the interplay of your cerebellum and cerebral co….”

“So you know that the sex itself isn’t the issue. Sex doesn’t scare me, not a goddamn _bit_ but…”

“It’s the….everything else? That would come with it?”

“There you go; nice deduction, professor. I told you flat out more than once I can’t afford to let you down. I meant it, Cas. Even with women, ninety percent of the time sex has never been about much at all. And with the hand full of men….”

“You don’t…have to….tell me this,” Castiel felt a desperate need to spare them both the embarrassment of him hearing Dean be blunt.

“No, c’mon, shut up and listen, okay? With guys it’s _never_ been about anything to me but….food or… money back when we were kids and desperately broke. Or it was about getting off quick and efficient – no fuss, no muss, no ‘will I see you around?’”

“And it wouldn’t be like that with us,” Castiel finished. “It couldn’t be.”

“Exactly,” Dean said, leaning in to demand Castiel’s darting eyes. “But…I can’t promise where it will go. Or not go. ‘Cause my track record sucks and I can’t lose you Cas – not over what I do or don’t have in me. I mean…how awful would that be?”

“You won’t.”

Castiel pushed his bowl of soup away and looked him in the eyes. He was ready to say more about his determination, his intention to stand by him no matter what but then Dean was leaning in and bringing their mouths together and…

“Wait….” Cas kissed him back, then felt himself trying to speak against Dean’s lips. “Not…ready….”

He heard Dean’s low, warm chuckle full of ‘too damn bad’ as he closed his eyes and opened up to him and then there was no room left for much beyond feeling what he’d imagined since he fell – even before he’d fallen – a deep, warm, wanting kiss; Dean’s tongue stroking and teasing at his, asking Cas to match him, humming a pleased, surprised sound when he started to.

It deepened when they found a rhythm and then Dean gave out an actual groan- short and soft, but the sound of it shot straight to Castiel’s spine, his throat, made his hardening cock ache and his body jump, arms reaching around Dean to pull him in and hold him.

“You’re exhausted, aren’t you?” Dean said, his forehead finding Castiel’s shoulder, hugging him back and that’s when Cas realized he was close to spent from getting here. “Think you can stay with me tonight without molesting me in my sleep?”

They were still so close, Dean sitting back up tall to plant wide, wet kisses on Cas’ mouth and cheeks, his chin; it was difficult to concentrate on answering with any degree of complexity.

“Yes.”

“Are you just saying that so you don’t end up sleeping on the couch?”

“Yes. Oh…no…. I mean, no. I’m not.”

“All right. Let’s go get horizontal and under the covers. Looking forward to pressing up by someone who actually wants me there.”

“That,” Castiel reached in to kiss him once more, lightly. “Yes. I agree. That …I want, too. Very much.”

~*~

“C’mon baby…. _fuuuck_ ….give it up, huh?” 

Castiel felt Dean almost pasted to his back, their damp bodies sliding but Dean’s barely moving at all - just his hips and ass pumping as Dean fucked him deep, Dean’s hands holding down his hands as they both shook and Dean swore and muttered and into Cas’ ear. It was a slick, filthy fuck and Castiel did not want it to end.

Apparently angel powers conferred a degree of …ability to hold on that had come as a surprise.

In a way, it was good: Dean finally believed Cas when he said he had never once stuck around, invisible, to watch him getting off. Believed it when Cas had to apologize for requiring fifty minutes to get off their first time, because he thought that was _about usual_ and he didn’t want to _disappoint_.

“Oh….mmmmnnnnn…..yesssss…..” Cas dug into the bed with his knees, now, and pushed back harder, focused on squeezing every time Dean pulled out of him, relaxing to feel Dean filling his body again and….

“Yeah? Like that? Like it a little too much? Not giving in, huh? Stubborn little…..b…rat…..” 

Cas chuckled at the word Dean altered, then gasped in surprise and pain when Dean stopped suddenly, pulled out and slapped his ass hard.

“Up…” Dean was clearly amused but still practically growled it, helping Cas up to his knees and urging him forward. “Hold onto the headboard. Yeah, c’mon…you know how I want you….”

“No….unnnnn…..no fair,” Cas got his objection out then gasped again at the feeling of Dean’s hand, his fingers pulling one of Cas’ ass cheek’s aside. 

His body arched reflexively as Dean punched up into him again, and he let go, let himself fall back against him. Dean’s arm and body held him up, free hand grabbing and tugging at Cas’ dick and something about the angle – _up_ this way, his vessel so exposed, so being _used_ for Dean’s pleasure…

It was obscene. And it felt so good. 

Lust. He was shaking with lust. Cas stopped trying to contain it- groaned and whined and moaned. That was catnip to Dean, as he’d learned, whose cussing and grunts got shorter, more breathless until he was shouting and arching and twisting, too. 

“Gaaah...” 

When it was over, Dean sounded deeply content and mildly annoyed as only he could.

They separated, Dean flopping back on the bed and Cas slowly joining him, on his side to watch Dean blinking and catching his breath, mouth softly open. 

“Are you okay?” Cas asked. 

“Yeah,” Dean took a couple more breaths and got up. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

He left to deal with the condom that Cas’ kept saying likely wasn’t necessary. Dean kept insisting, ‘cause even he ‘didn’t know where that thing has been lately…’

“There,” Dean jumped back in bed and Cas got a sheet half, awkwardly wrapped around their cooling bodies in the none too warm bunker. “Nap? ‘Til lunch?”

“You rest,” Cas reached up for pillows and they settled in where they were in the middle of the bed. “I have some thinking to do…about what Sam found. In Maine.”

“Time for us to go, huh? Tomorrow maybe?” Dean saw his nod and shrugged, eyes heavy and still hazy. “Well…s’been a great four days. Glad you gave in. Surrendered and came back to me. Knew you would if I asked….”

“Of course you knew,” Cas only called his bluff with his eyes – didn’t say out loud that it was Dean who had surrendered. 

Finally. Thankfully. Amen.

“Sleep, Berigeda,” Cas unconsciously stroked Dean’s arm near the Mark, worrying it, the outside world claiming more of both their thoughts every minute.

“Don’t call me that,” Dean ordered, but he was half out now and the words slid all into each other.

“What? Darling? Don’t call you…”

“No pet names. Human or angel. Just Dean.”

“Is that an order?” Cas curled up closer, urged him over to make Dean the small spoon and buried his face by Dean’s neck.

“Like the way you say my name just fine. S’different.”

“Different than what?”

“The way… anybody else… says it.”

“I wonder why that is?” Castiel said, but Dean never heard it.

~*~

“So….” Sam had his duffel in one hand and the ring with the car keys spinning on a finger. “Am I riding shotgun, or am I stuck with the back seat today?”

Dean started to give him a ‘what the hell are you talking about look’ when he realized Sam’s eyes were on them, he and Cas. They’d been standing by the kitchen table reviewing notes and maps before they all headed for Maine, their free arms dangling and fingertips mindlessly intertwined.

He hadn’t even noticed it. Castiel hadn’t, either, apparently from how fast he pulled his away.

“I…uh, could stand to stretch out in back and rest,” Cas offered. “It’ll help me focus on considering options for approaching the angels we’re searching for when we get there.”

“Sounds good,” Sam headed for the door. “Maybe we can swap out part way.”

“It’s more than fifteen hundred damn miles,” Dean tucked the maps and papers he was carrying in his pocket and grabbed his own bag and Cas,’ too. “Gonna need a nap or three myself, for cripe’s sake. Maybe we can stop worrying about the exact seating arrangements?”

“I’m just…trying to be fair,” Sam said but he was grinning in a way that let Cas feel free to smile too as they all headed out. “Why do you have to be so uptight about…”

“Shut it, Sammy….”

“He’s never going to be much better than this. You do understand that?” Sam asked.

“I do,” Castiel said. “I have no illusions.”

“Et tu, Brute?”

“Agreeing with your brother that you are difficult at best when it comes to interpersonal relationships is hardly on par with assassination- either literal or character.”

“Okay. Enough. In the car. Now, or you’re both staying here and I’m going alone.”

 

~fin~


End file.
